


By Merlin's Hand

by jargonelle



Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-14
Updated: 2006-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:26:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1638815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jargonelle/pseuds/jargonelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur / Nimue. They were both pupils of Merlin. Ten interlinked drabbles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Merlin's Hand

**Author's Note:**

> Legends scraped together from wherever I could find them - hopefully it's not too jarring. Thanks to M for the beta.
> 
> Written for emilystarr1

*

A woman emerged from the lake and bowed her head before the King.

Her wavy hair, her face, her neck and her white dress, all were dry, and the sheen in her eyes was only due to the brightness of the sun. "Sir Arthur," she said, "to what do I owe the pleasure?"

Arthur took her hand and raised it to his mouth; he kissed her finger, the one most closely bound to her heart and one of her sources of power, at its knuckle, at its creases and at its tip. "My Lady, I come to you for counsel."

*

"All I can give is yours freely," the woman answered warmly. Her name was Nimue, though some would call her Vivian, and others would use her title alone.

"Good. I would hate to have travelled all this way for naught."

She would have offered then, to return him as quickly as possible to his castle, since she was no longer as mortal man or woman and had no reason to fear travelling through the forest unescorted.

"There is no one to see us here," he said, and kissed her hand again. "Guinevere and Lancelot can take my place for now."

*

She knew of Arthur, of Guinevere and Lancelot.

The benefits of a united land and a shared treasury were not enough to restrain either pair of wandering hands. It was a secret the husband and wife shared, though not, of course, with each other.

It would ruin Camelot, eventually. It would ruin Arthur and it would ruin Nimue's beloved Lancelot, who she had raised and delivered to Arthur as his protector. Yet even if she stepped aside, another woman would most certainly take her place and still everything would fall.

Nimue closed her eyes and let herself be swept away.

*

Arthur manoeuvred her away from the lakeside, his rough, strong hands pressed under her chin and she stumbled backwards, legs tripping over one another until she slammed into a tree. He opened her mouth and traced her lips with his tongue: biting, sucking, grunting.

Then he stepped back, ostensibly to remove his clothes.

"Wait a minute," Nimue said, and she called upon the leaves and flowers of the forest floor to gather together and form a comfortable mattress.

"What could you do to me?" Arthur whispered in awe.

"Everything," she said, and she proved it by doing nothing at all.

*

Arthur bade her sit and then to lie upon her back. He straddled her waist and hitched up her gown, the heavy mesh of his amour like a boulder on her chest. She struggled, gasped for air, and Arthur looked surprised, as if he had not expected her to be real enough to breathe.

"Do not stop, my Lord," Nimue said, and in Arthur's moment of bewitched distraction, she rolled until her face was above his, until his weight was pinned beneath her lighter frame.

He thrust upwards into her, as virile and potent as any king who ever lived.

*

They lay entwined under a blue sky, their bodies tired but their minds awake.

Arthur seemed too stressed to sleep; he had travelled a long way in order to shed his burdens and Nimue guessed that they had not relinquished their hold of him.

"If you cannot rest," she said, "that perhaps we should talk awhile. You said you sought my counsel, did you not?"

There would be many, she suspected, who would delight in having the king's ear and mouth so close, but Arthur appeared content to keep silent. Nimue laid her head over his heart and listened, nonetheless.

*

"We were both pupils of Merlin," Arthur said suddenly.

Merlin, trapped alive in his tomb of stone and earth, surely would have laughed at that, for his guidance of Arthur had led a young man to kingship and his guidance of Nimue would have led her only to his bed, if his initial plan had borne fruit.

"We were blessed to benefit from his wisdom," Nimue said, remembering how easy it had been to tease spells and illusions from him with her hands, breasts and hips.

Arthur's pursuits were gentle in comparison; Nimue would never be unable to halt him.

*

"He knew he would leave us," Arthur said, not quite betrayed but not yet forgiving. "He told me his time had come."

"He had no choice." That was true enough: Nimue had outgrown her former master, no longer wanted to suffer at his gnarled hands, and so she had entrapped him, perhaps for eternity.

"Could you tell me my fate?" Arthur asked and his voice was sad, as if he feared the answer.

"There is one thing I could tell you," she said, closing her eyes and seeing, wishing, summoning a vision of abundance and wealth. "It is good news."

*

"Talk to the farmers and the labourers. Tell them this year's harvest will be plentiful, a sign of the splendour of your reign." Nimue was hungry for conquest and glory, for the spoils of the battlefield. Her enchanted fortress offered her solitude and sanctuary, but there was little honour to be found within its walls. "I will come with you to Camelot and advise you as Merlin once did," she said and Arthur accepted her proposition gratefully.

"War is coming," he said, "I can feel it, yet with your help, I shall remain victorious."

Autumn brought only hunger and despair.

*

She had not meant to damn him, for him to take her words and twist them until his final, stupid, valiant battle.

Nimue and her two sisters of magic took Arthur's body into their possession. They mourned him and carried him to Avalon, where Nimue stole one last kiss from her sleeping king. For it was told that in time, the Britons would have need of Arthur, and so he would 'awaken'. He could not be dead. He was not.

Nimue lived alone. She never aged and she never died.

She cursed Merlin, she sharpened Arthur's sword, and she waited.

*

 

 

 


End file.
